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Urström at the 1999 Stockholm Water Festival

SHOW DIARY

Day 8 - Tuesday August 10 - Show Day 5

    Today we had the luxury of a 16:00 crew call so we were all able to get some well-deserved sleep! It rained overnight and most of the morning but was beginning to clear up by the time we arrived. The water-skiing show was gone which meant we did not have two forced work breaks each day. While they were performing on the water, we could not use boats to move equipment or do any testing.
    During the night, water had seeped into the XLR connectors in the time code cable over the bridge to the beam position despite our best efforts to tape them. Each connection had to be opened, dried and then re-taped with a layer of electrical tape first, followed by a layer of gaffer tape over the top.

The screen in stowed position against the Palace wall.

    One of the smoke machines ran out of CO2 towards the end of the last night's show so all the cylinders were checked and those that were suspected of being low were replaced. The fan on the machine under the bridge failed necessitating a trip down the ladder and some rearrangement of the equipment and drying out of the fan.

    Things are a little less rushed today. Adela persuaded the festival organisers to provide coffee to the crew before the start of the set-up so we are all feeling more human and rested today. Jan has been hard at work in master control and has made more changes to the beam effects portion of the show.

    Just before 23:00 the usually expectant hush fell over the crowd but some of the vendors in the tents on the Palace side have not co-operated in turning out their lights. A runner was dispatched along the street to order the offending merchants to black out.

Palace facade projection

    The show was almost flawless tonight. Despite the change in wind direction, the boat mounted machine was moved before the show and we had almost enough smoke. One of the smoke machines provided by the local production company was again only smoking in bursts with lengthy pauses between bursts rather then continuously as we required. We extracted a promise from them to fix the problem. The audience was the most appreciative yet with loots of cheering and whistling although a few people decided to "help" the laser graphics with their pointers.    

Quick Links to Report Pages

Stockholm Water Festival Report - Introduction
Sweden and Stockholm - Background and general information
The Site - Orientation to the show area and the challenges it presented
The Crew - The people who put it all together
Tech Specs - The equipment used in the presentation
The Music - An interview with the composer and MP3 file of the soundtrack
Smoke on the water - Covering a lake with smoke for beam effects
The Show - A description with many pictures
Animated Gifs - Gifs showing Palace projections and climatic beam effects
Stadshuset - Stockholm City Hall tour (very large page)
Show Diary - Day-to-day coverage of the trials and triumphs

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